> The reddit-style humor (like the "poop knife") was just completely inappropriate.
Larian games tend to do this. Note that intersection of sets of people who worked on BGs 2 and 3 is most likely an empty set.
I would rather complain that it wasn’t more like divinity. Divinity’s game design was vastly superior to 5e. But it clearly is a BG sequel. The plot connections are pretty strong. Perhaps more than ought to have been expected
I didn't list any complains besides perhaps commenting on Larian's humor.
> The plot connections are pretty strong. Perhaps more than ought to have been expected
The plot has been concluded in ToB. Just sprinkling around random NPCs from previous games doesn't make it a sequel.
Sure. But if it's Baldur's Gate, why isn't it 2nd Edition AD&D? It's far superior to Divinity, it's what we expect from BG, and it would win points for nostalgia reasons.
As bad as 5E, 2nd is far, far worse. There's basically nothing for martial characters to do any round. Shoulda rolled a wizard. Hope you like making save or die rolls in high level play.
We've had 35 years of experience with tabletop and CRPGs since then, both with systems that tried to stick closer to D&D and with ones that tried new things altogether.
The Divinity system isn't perfect by any means, but I can't imagine how rose-tinted your glasses must be to think that THAC0 and the golden age of Linear Fighter, Quadratic Wizard are better.
It's amazing that we have two great games that modernize the formula in different ways - Pathfinder showing how to do the old style with modern tech and BG3 interpreting it.
And that doesn't even include all the other games you've mentioned (or Larians previous Divinity games) or Solasta or others... we're in golden age of CRPGs again.
Also, "cash grab"? Huh?
Having them try to pretend to be 1990s/2000s-era Bioware would have been a disaster (even today’s Bioware wouldn’t be able to do that).
I think it is. They should have refused the "3" in the name, then it would be completely fine (we already had Dark Alliance).
Just because there's a '3' in the name doesn't mean it should feel like a clone of '2', especially when the studio changes. Dune II was a completely different game from Dune. GTA 3 was completely different from GTA 1/2. Armored Core. Max Payne. Wasteland.
Sports game and certain shooters are widely mocked (among nerds) for being basically identical release after release.
Absolutely is if you are pretending to make a sequel to someone else's game.
> Just because there's a '3' in the name doesn't mean it should feel like a clone of '2', especially when the studio changes.
You got that the wrong way around. The original team wanting to go in a different direction is one thing. But a completely different studio wanting to create something very different from the original game should just do that and create a separate game instead of a purpoted sequel. So yes, a different studio being given the license for the sequel (which is already a very questionable practice that rights holders should be called out for) should strive to mimick the feel of the original game very closely.
> Sports game and certain shooters are widely mocked (among nerds) for being basically identical release after release.
What an absurd comparison. Literally taking the infinity engine with BG2 systems and creating a new campaign with that would not even be close to the yearly EA rereleases. And no, I'm not saying that there can't be any changes at all but Larian went well beyond what would be needed to update the game for $current_year audience.
I'm just going to have to fundamentally agree to disagree. I would 100% endorse this quote if we were talking about novels or theatrical plays, and maybe 50% if talking about movies (Godfather? Yes. Alien? Nah).
But a game, outside of odd niches like visual novels or 'walking simulators', is a much more open-ended experience, and the expectation of a sequel is not merely to continue the story - that's typically called an 'expansion', a concept that doesn't exist in novels or movies. A sequel is generally expected to innovate, and the longer since the previous title the more innovation is expected.
"BG3" on the otherhand innovates on Divinity: Original Sin 2 instead and then slaps a Baldur's Gate paint on the result.
I also don't see why games should be inherently different from other media in this respect. Yes, games are often seen as lesser art compared to more established forms but this is (in part) a result of them being treated as products first and not a justification for it.
Do you think that the setting, themes, story, and RPG rules are just 'paint'? Is the Infinity Engine so much more important than the Forgotten Realms?
> I also don't see why games should be inherently different from other media in this respect.
Because games aren't media: games are media generators. The same game can be a tragedy to one player and a comedy to another. So you can have two different kinds of follow-ups: ones that simply generate more media in the same way ( = expansion), or ones that improve on how the media is generate ( = sequel). The distinction doesn't make sense for fixed media like novels or films.
Note that I'm not talking about video games in particular, it applies to any kind of game. If I publish a book that adds a new secret level to the crypt of Acererak in the same style as the original, it's an expansion. If I publish a story about a different crypt that feels connected to the original but with its own unique design choices, that's when I can call it Tomb of Horrors 2.